Title: 🏠3.5. Domestic or Intimate Partner Violence Facilitated byand New Technologies
Course: "Our networks, our security" Digital Security with a Gender Perspective > Section: Module 3. Identifying Common Threats: Online Gender-Based Violence against Women and Girls

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Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) play a significant role in developing new strategies for abuse, control, harassment, and aggression by perpetrators of domestic and partner violence.

Studies have shown that 77% of victims of cyberbullying have also experienced some form of physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner.

(European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2014).

Some technologies are more commonly used than others to perpetrate abuse and cyber control within the context of domestic or partner violence. Tools that are frequently used include text messages, social networks like Facebook, and 👉spyware to monitor victims' locations. However, the ways in which cyber abuse manifests are constantly changing.

Additionally, many forms of violence have become normalized and go unnoticed under the guise of romantic love myths, but they essentially aim for cyber control and restricting women's digital lives

How can partner violence or online violence, as facilitated by new technologies, manifest? Let’s review some examples:

- Asking a partner to share passwords to "prove there’s nothing to hide" or spying on their mobile phone.
- Trying to control interactions on social media by censoring photos or posts, or monitoring contacts, conversations, and comments.
- Asking a partner to constantly share their geolocation or forcing them to send intimate images "as proof of love.".
- 👉Hacking social media accounts to impersonate the victim and make false posts that could affect their relationship with family or friends.
- Stealing email account credentials to monitor or send emails on behalf of the victim.
- Installing spyware on the victim’s or their children’s mobile phones, activating location services in apps, or monitoring the victim's location through their social media posts.
- Using cloud services like iCloud or Google accounts to track the victims' movements.
- Theft of personal data for the purpose of defrauding the victim or making unauthorized online purchases.
- The use of connected smart devices (Internet of Things) in homes, such as thermostats, cameras, microphones, speakers, or locks, to control and/or create psychological stress for the victim.